This game plays similarly to other mobile village simulators such as The Smurfs Village and The Simpsons: Tapped Out, with you collecting bits and gems and heart crystals to rebuild Ponyville, unlock more items and ponies and eventually defeat Nightmare Moon. As it is very closely bound to the mythology and themes of its parent cartoon, you can refer to the trope pages for the cartoon as well for even more info related to this game.

This game uses these tropes:

Accidental Pun: Minor meta example. You can visit Sweet Apple Acres, a location known for apple products, in a game that can be played on iOS devices.

Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: It's been estimated that it would either take 3 years of completely free playing to earn enough gems to buy the required ponies, buildings, and decorations to complete the game, or about $80 (USD) to buy the needed gems outright. This doesn't consider all the side ponies that you may want to get (some only available in the Balloon Pop minigame, which rarely gives out ponies on the Gold Tier level, which costs 10 gems per playnote formely 25 gems), nor is it counting that some of the shops or items you'll need to complete the quests require payment in gemsnote Also barring mistakes that would accidentally make you use gems- and due to the lack of confirmation dialogs, these mistakes are easy to make. More infuriating when you realize that some of these objectives cannot be skipped. All quests must be finished to complete the game, and so, this brings it up to a total of $200+, or 15 years or consecutive-day playing. The estimation may also be too low: one player actually abused the time travel glitch to complete the game and noted that he finished his last quest with the calendar in 2018. That's a little over 5 years! There are two unskippable missions near the end that require you to purchase two ponies and one building. Prior to the June 2013 update, the ponies (Shining Armor and Princess Cadance) were 650 apiece, and the building (the Town Hall) was 600. In total that's 1,900 gems!

The Christmas update thankfully amended the issue for the most part. Now, by watching a few minutes worth of ads via the "Pony Theater", you can make up to 10 gems per day, in addition to the ones you could get before. This still means around two years or so to get 100% Completion, but the main storyline is far from an issue. It also increased the chances of getting a free gem from certain actions (especially finding Derpy) It also lowered the prices for several ponies and shops required for the main quest or outright changed the price to bits in some cases. However, with the addition of new ponies bought for gems, the cost in total, if you wanted to get everything, remains roughly the same.

The Christmas update in 2013 again amended gem prices; Princess Celestia has been reduced to 500 gems (later dropped again to 430 gems with the occasional sale price of 215 gems) and other ponies have had their prices cut up to half of their original price. In addition, the Equestria Girls minigame has had the score difficulty lowered drastically, allowing players to earn certain ponies through gameplay instead of spending gems or hearts.

Hearts. While easier to obtain than gems once you know how to do it, let's take into account some of these players are quite young and their parent(s) will not allow them to make Gameloft accounts and thus, be able to send or receive hearts, and will be stuck indefinitely on the "Get Along, Little Pony" missionnote which requires you to purchase Scootaloo for 50 hearts. They can also be obtained by choosing to share the level up and quest completion messages. Not that the game ever tells you this. However, it does tell you that you can share your score on the dancing game and get a heart.

The long and short of it: if you want all of the ponies, you need over 3000 gems, worth 200 US dollars. Celestia alone requires 70 dollars worth at minimum. Pretty steep for a children's game.

Alternate Continuity: The game's story assumes that Nightmare Moon was indeed able to cover Equestria in darkness more successfully than she did in the cartoon.

It also takes some liberties with the ponies and their hometown. Many ponies can live in Ponyville that, in the show, live somewhere completely different. The Canterlot expansion is more accurate (not counting the ponies that were already added to Ponyville despite being from Canterlot), with only Minuette being somewhat questionable.

The August 29, 2013 update added the spa ponies Aloe and Lotus Blossom for Canterlot, despite them only appearing in Ponyville in the show.

Ambidextrous Sprite: Unlike the show, this was averted in the game by using 3D models of the characters, though in a few cases (Fancy Pants for one), the profile picture is contrary to the 3D model. In addition, cutie marks are clearly on both sides.

Anti-Frustration Features: The minecart game's Boost upgrade grants a short period of invulnerability immediately after its effect ends, which is very helpful because you can't control your pony while it's active and so might end the effect right next to a barrel, Diamond Dog or Shadowbolt. In addition, it also automatically clears gaps for you and has a magnetic effect so you don't miss any airborne bits.

Any ponies living in the village will not take note of clearable objects swarms, or other hostile environments/objects: thorns, hollow trees, dead trees, wild rocks, Parasprites, Changelings, Vampire Fruit Bats, and Tirek. They mostly serve as an obstacle to the player and the player only, taking up space in the village where players would want to put own structures and scenery.

Each pony uses the same exact model skeleton model (resized appropriately), and thus all are capable of doing the same actions/dances. Each of the Mane Six (and a few others) have their own actions exclusive only to them, and tall ponies/Alicorns (Celestia, Luna, King Sombra, and the Mane-iac) only have one animation when tapped.

Granny Smith's model combines the movement of the Alicorns with the idle animations of any Earth Pony. When she shifts between her Alicorn movement and standard Pony animations, it's very noticable.

The default "example" town owned by Princess Celestia does not send the player back hearts if the player gifts her or drops a chest in her village.

The game will occasionally not count decorations from the player's inventory or already placed in the village for some missions (such as the large clock tower for Ponyville during the Rainbow Dash quest).

Ascended Meme: A few of the quotes when you touch some of the original ponies (those who existed since the very first version) in the game.

Bottomless Pit Rescue Service: Rainbow Dash in the mine cart minigame (or Spitfire if playing as Rainbow Dash). You still lose the game when it happens, it's really just to show your pony getting rescued from what could otherwise be a fatal accident.

Bragging Rights Reward: Celestia can be this; she periodically generates element shards after being purchased, but at a price of 430 gems (the most expensive pony in the game), most players that opt to earn gems without paying for them (such as finding Derpy, playing the heart crystal Silver-Tier balloon pop game, defeating parasprites & changelings, spending element shards on activated harmony stones, having the game running at midnight for the daily bonuses, playing the Equestria Girls dancing minigame, or leveling up) will likely have all the shards they need long before they can afford her.

Also Luna, who is only unlocked after completing all the Ponyville quests and defeating Nightmare Moon.

Bribing Your Way to Victory: You can choose to spend real money on in-game purchases for more bits and gems. This does not help you get heart crystals, and trust us, the game does its best to make you want to keep spending money.

Cliff Hanger: Following the community event to revive the Tree of Harmony inside Everfree Forest which lasted from early December 2014 to early January 2015, the Tree of Harmony chest appears infront of the restored Tree. A popup then appears revealing that the chest's mysterious will be revealed in the next update.

Clone Degeneration: The Changelings that invade Canterlot as a form of any of the mane-six; they are easier to tell apart to their real counterparts because they don't socialize with other ponies and usually spend all their time in shadowy areas of the town.

On some devices, they even only show up as Twilight, which makes them even easier to spot. With the Equestria Girls update and Twilight becoming an alicorn, they're even easier to spot because they still take on unicorn Twilight's form.

Console Cameo: The Android version has a statue of the Android mascot worth 50 gems.

Continuity Nod: All over the place. Appropriate for a game based on a show known for its continuity.

Damn You, Muscle Memory: In the minecart game, the Shadowbolts automatically jump when they approach you, punishing any player whose reflex to seeing an approaching obstacle is to automatically tap to jump instead of seeing what the obstacle is first.

Dark Is Evil: Let's see: Ponies scared to build stuff in the dark? Check. Thorns and hollow trees counted as Nuisance Objects? Check. Shadowbolts in the flying and minecart games trying to take you down? Check. The game wanting you to kill every Changeling that appears in Canterlot? Check.

Demoted to Extra: Spike the Dragon. He only appears in the game's plot, the Bits and Gems shops, and (on occasion) the intro to the Mine Cart game. His role is small enough to the point where he doesn't get his own 3D model.

Discord as well, who only is present via the story introducing Everfree Forest, as well as the cutscene that plays when the player defeats Tirek for the final time.

Department of Redundancy Department: If you count the number of times the game would say "Play" between clicking on a home to start training a specific pony, twice on the "Ready to Play" screen, once on the instruction screen, and once on the bonus multiplier selector.

There are even instances when you get two buttons to exit the same screen (in addition to always being able to do so with the Return button on Android devices).

In the minecart minigame, Rainbow Dash swoops in to save the player after they crash. However, if the player chooses to play the game as Rainbow Dash, Spitfire saves her.

Scootaloo is given a set of magical butterfly wings for Clear the Skies just like the unicorns and earth ponies, despite having her own set of wings as a pegasus. This is because in the show, her wings are too weak to fly, so the game considers her to be an Earth pony instead of a Pegasus.

The speed boost animation for Rainbow Dash in Clear the Skies gets replaced by a Sonic Rainboom. You only get 5 chances to see this, though.

As of the Everfree Forest update, you can see Canterlot in the distance of Ponyville.

Do Well, but Not Perfect: Got a pony that's at maximum level? Hopefully that character doesn't have a quest to play any of the mini-games coming up. Once the level is maxed out, that pony can't play the level-up games anymore.

Fixed in an update: if the pony in question is maxed out, that part of the quest will already be checked off/completed.

The Royal Wedding update allows players to travel to and from Canterlot once they reach level 15 - later changed to 10, and Canterlot features its own set of ponies, shops, decor, and quests that mirror the Canterlot Wedding. You even "battle" the Changelings.

The "Sweet Apple Acres" update allows you to visit Sweet Apple Acre, once you reach level 6. Sweet Apple Acres features its own set of ponies, shops, decor, and quests.

December 2014 saw the Everfree Forest expansion which added the eponymous woodland to the playable location list and added a slew of new content. However, it's very limited in what can be done there, and therefore it doesn't qualify as a normal village.

Flock of Wolves: Can happen in Canterlot if players don't clear out the Changelings; in time, players may find Canterlot full of Twilight Sparkles or some of the other Mane 6.

Follow the Leader: As per many of Gameloft titles, this game is attempting to cash in on the success of both The Smurfs Village and The Simpsons Tapped Out, but unlike those games, this title makes the whole "we want your money" part much more obvious.

The game is known to randomly crash horribly on the first-generation iPad (however, it does crash on occasion on just about any iOS device). Once the said crash happens on a first-gen iPad, the game is never starting again on the device unless it's reinstalled. Thing is, if you reinstall, you lose everything you've done to this point and have to start over. Woe betide you if you've actually paid money for gems in the game. The game also always crashes on Android devices when you launch it from a push notification.

A different crash related bug that seems to be non-device specific; when purchasing a pony, the game can crash before being able to place their house on the map. Should this this happen, the pony will still be removed from the store making it impossible to ever acquire them. If the pony is required to complete a checklist task (such as one of the mane-six), it becomes impossible to ever progress any further in the game.

The game has also developed a nasty habit of randomly losing track of the player's progress. This can be especially frustrating when you've worked all week to level up or collect items for a quest grind, only to have it all be for nothing when the game sets you right back where you started at.

In the minecart game, it's possible for your pony to just randomly drop through otherwise intact-looking tracks for no reason.

In Version 1.9 (the Sweet Apple Acres update), the RNG that determines the color for what variety of Parasprite/Vampire Bat spawns was accidentally tweaked to spawn those of only one variety (the red color killed by Rainbow Dash's Loyality Shards). Thankfully it was fixed in the following build.

Sometimes when you remove a large amount of darkness in a part of a village, when you leave the game and come back, the darkness may respawn, meaning you flushed maybe several thousands of Bits down the toilet thanks to unintentionally respawning darkness.

In rare cases, when dealing with Tirek in Everfree Forest, Tirek may never respawn when his timer runs out .The update released immediately after Tirek's inclusion fixes this.

The Android version has a nasty bug where the timer neverticks down. It just stays at 24:00:00, and never counts down.

In the show, all the mane 6 except Rainbow Dash and the Cakes live where they work. In this game, that's not possible because their respective places of work are only considered houses.

Many of the ponies you can buy don't live in their locations assigned in-game.

The Wonderbolts Academy looks nothing like in the show. Instead of its normal mountaintop location, it's located on a cloud.

As of the Hearts and Hooves Day 2014 update you can unlock Daring Do in Ponyville and A.K. Yearling in Canterlot. For those unaware, they're the same pony.

In Clear the Skies' instructions screen, the earth ponies are granted normal Pegasus wings by Celestia, however the actual game depicts non-Pegasi ponies with butterfly wings similar to the wings Rarity received in the episode Sonic Rainboom, regardless of their gender.

Parasprites, Changelings, and Vampire Fruit Bats are fought with shards representing the Elements of Harmony in the game. In the show, the elements were never used against any of those creatures.

First-time players will be given a quest very early on to play the Equestria Girls dancing mini-game, complete with cutscenes showing Sunset Shimmer stealing Princess Twilight's crown. This in spite of the fact Twilight is only just dealing with Nightmare Moon and her eternal darkness, and is nowhere near becoming a princess yet.

Zecora's hut is located in both Ponyville and Everfree Forest, though Zecora lives in the former in-game, despite living in the later in the show's official canon.

The Tree of Harmony "minigame" uses the unicorn model for Twilight Sparkle, despite her being an alicorn when she dealt with that crisis in the show. Some of the dialogue in the cutscene following the completion of the event is spoken by different characters than in the show (such as Rarity commenting on the number of locks on the mystery box given by the tree, which was said by Luna in the actual episode).

After defeating Tirek, the Golden Oaks Library is not permanently destroyed as it was in the episode; it is simply placed into the player's inventory (though is reduced to a mere decoration and is not actually inhabited by Twilight or Applejack like it originally was).

Many of the ponies added in later versions of the game are event-exclusive, meaning you need to acquire the pony through means that don't include purchasing it from the Store. You'll have to do research to figure out what event unlocks what.

Heel-Face Turn: The Everfree Forest expansion added villain characters King Sombra, The Mane-iac, and The Shadowbolts as purchasable ponies.

Hitbox Dissonance: The hitboxes for Parasprites are much bigger than the swarm itself. Which can be an issue when you're trying to move or clear objects around them, especially when they are the color of a crystal you are trying to stockpile so you can activate one of the Elemental Stones.

The darkness was made much darker with the October 2014 bugfix update.

It Makes Sense in Context: The making of a totem pole solely from a substance of magical liquid combined with three different species of plantlife. How it forms into a solid object is anyone's guess.

Killed Off for Real: What seems to happen to Queen Chrysalis (and her entire army) once you beat the "Canterlot Wedding" event—rather than being sent flying across the horizon, they appear to be vaporized by the Elements of Harmony. Rainbow Dash's line about "getting rid of these Changelings once and for all" once you have all the Element shards necessary to do so doesn't bode well for the Changelings, either.

Level Grinding: Some of the ponies are very easy to rank up, whilst some of them will take forever (Different EXP gain on top of cool down times). Ponies like Shining Armor will take a good few weeks unless you tweak with the clock setting or use score modifiers.

Loads and Loads of Characters: Not only does the game have all the primary and secondary characters from the show, but practically every background pony you can think of is available as well.

To a certain degree. Once a pony reaches it's maximum star ranking (5 stars) it can never be used to play any of the games that would grant that pony experience. If there is a certain prize that requires you to play either Ball Bounce, Apple Catch, or Star Gazing but with almost your entire town consisting of 5-stared ponies, you simply cannot complete the objective in time and win the prize.

Once an otherwise unobtainable pony is no longer being sold as a sale in the shop, he/she is very likely never to appear again until another sale occurs down the line.

Jesús Pezuña is no longer purchasable in the game, though he is still present if the player had previously purchased him prior to his removal.

Lucky Seven: Lucky Clover, one of the extra ponies, costs 77,777 bits in the shop, and is unlocked when the player reaches level 7.

Most of the minigames, although you can't really fail any of them, just score badly and receive little to no experience for your Pony. Ball Bounce was this until a more recent update which fixed up the game to make it much more refined.

Every quest objective that requires you to collect Element Shards. While each shop is more likely to produce one type of shard than the others, you wouldn't know that without a guide, and even then it remains a gamble.

There's three quests that require you to find Derpy. Her spawn rate is incredibly low, and her box model easily blends in with the background, making her harder to spot.

Minecart Madness: An update on March 25, 2014 includes a new minigame that's basically this.

Moveset Clone: Every single pony. The only ponies with unique animations on the map are the Mane 6.

Nerf: Most of the prices had this done to them in the Movie Time update. That and the addition of the minecart mini-game, which makes grinding bits and shards a lot easier.

Also done to the songs in Equestria Girls dancing minigame in the Sweet Apple Acres update, mostly for the worse. On the one hand, it got rid of or replaced most of the orange horseshoe note sets, which required rapid tapping and tended to break combos. On the other hand, a lot of the notes were removed, which means less points gained per song and makes winning the prizes take that much longer.

Obvious Beta: At first, given the bugs, unbalanced gameplay and crashing. Alleviated for the most part with its first update.

The new version of DJ Pon-3 added to Canterlot in the August 29, 2013 update is based on her San Diego Comic-Con 2013 adult collectible; she has blue legs, glitter in her mane & tail, and her sunglasses have diamond-studded frames. Even more perplexing is that her normal version is still in the game, living in Ponyville. The new version also has to be leveled up separately, at it does not inherit or share the stats of the Ponyville version.

Prior to the Hearth's Warming Eve 2013 update, Flash Sentry was missing his wings, and his in-game model had black slits on his body for where his wings should be.

For Lightning Dust's model, whenever she blinks, her eyes suddenly transform into a different pony's eyes, and the pigmentation around them will change from light green to orange! It's only for a brief second, and tapping on her to make her dance will give her normal closed eyes, but it's still noteworthy.

Many of the game's newer ponies have mugshots that are larger than the mugshots of ponies introduced when the game was first launched. Just about every pony introduced in the Sweet Apple Acres update is affected by this, and in some cases, the mugshots are not even lined up properly with the horseshoe frame, such as Granny Smith's.

Twilight remains a unicorn in the minecart game even after you've ascended her to alicorn.

Ms. Harshwhinny's in-game model is not portrayed with the same angry eyes normally associated with her character.

One-Hour Work Week: You can assign each pony you control to work in a particular shop, but this doesn't stop them from spending all of their time wandering around the map and having impromptu dance parties whenever they meet each other.

Only Known by Their Nickname: Derpy Hooves is called "the pony in the box" on in-game Flavor Texts. The descriptions of the missions that require you to find her refer to her has different nicknames as well.

Palette Swap: As in the toyline, Lovestruck and Forsythia are obvious recolors of Twilight Sparkle and Rarity respectively, with different cutie marks to boot.

Spitfire, Soarin, and Fleetfoot of the Wonderbolts use the same sprite with their flight suits being the only parts of them that are the same color.

Celestia and Luna both use the same model and animations, their colors being the only visual differences.

The Power of Friendship: As in the cartoon, the ultimate win condition over Nightmare Moon is to recover and activate all six Elements of Harmony, have all the mane 6, and finish all the quests. More importantly, you can make friends with other players of the game and send them gifts, which is the main way of getting heart crystals.

Before the update, the Royal Guard Pegasus got the butterfly wings along with his own wings. Unlike the other pegasi, he doesn't fly around in his idle animations.

Retcon: When she was first released, Fleur Dis Lee was mistakenly made an alicorn. A future patch updated her in-game model to make her a unicorn, and viewing her profile in the Album reveals that the Alicorn version was a Changeling. However, her image in the shop still shows her as an Alicorn.

Rhythm Game: The Equestria Girls content is this, having the characters dancing to five possible songs, and being able to invite two friends.

Royals Who Actually Do Something: If you want to, you could put that lazy Princess Celestia to grinding flour in the windmill, or Prince Blueblood tending the carrot farm...

Rule of Cute: Oh so much. The ponies you unlock wander around town and socialize with each other in adorable ways.

Secret Character: There are many ponies that are not shown in the Shop and instead have to be unlocked by winning them though either the Equestria Girls Dancing Game, the Mine Cart Game, or as a prize from one of the timed events.

A later update issued in late 2014 added special ponies that players must compete for against many others by playing the mini games, the top 15 players will receive the pony free of charge, while runner ups will only receive the elemental shards associated with the Mane Six. Because more than 1,000 players may take part, it's worthless attempting to win a pony through this method unless you have lots of gems available.

Sequence Breaking: It's possible to unlock most ponies before the story quests ask you to do so. The only limitation is your level (and if the pony costs hearts or gems, not even that). Same goes for stores.

Since you can access Canterlot quite early on, it's possible to have main characters like Rarity talk and give you quests in Canterlot even though you might not have them yet.

Socialization Bonus - There's a whole currency (Heart Crystals) based around this. You can receive a Heart Crystal if someone in your friends list sends you a treasure chest and/or a gift. However, each of those can only be done once a day, per user, so if you have many Gameloft friends, just sit back and watch the hearts roll in.

Made easier with the Equestria Girls dancing game. Sharing your score will give you a heart, and if you dance with friends, you'll earn a heart for each.

Two of the four ponies who showed up in The Cutie Pox bearing a resemblance to characters from The Big Lebowski now bear names similar to their human counterparts, and a third one (the one resembling Walter Sobchak) is simply referred to as "Bowling Pony" in gameplay but gets named Walter in the code.

Something Completely Different: Everfree Forest: Compared to the first three villages available, this one does not qualify as a full village; the only ponies able to reside there are the Mane Six (despite Zecora living there in the show), and the player must clear the darkness in a sequence. None of the scenery items can be moved as well.

Timed Mission: Once you trigger Tirek's appearance in the Everfree Forest, you have to destroy his shields and make him flee a set number of times within several hours until the mission registers as completed. If you fail, Tirek will return to full strength and the timer will reset.

Title Drop: One of Twilight's lines when she's touched is "Friendship is Magic".

20% More Awesome: Rainbow Dash will sometimes say "Needs to be 20% cooler" if you tap her.

Unexpected Character: Fan favorite background ponies like Lyra Heartstrings, Octavia, and Dr. Hooves being playable are no surprise, but several bronies were surprised to see some of the The Big Lebowski ponies from "The Cutie Pox", particularly Jesús Pezuña, being present.

Given the issues raised with Derpy, her appearance wasn't exactly certain, but the developers found a way to sneak her in anyway without ever having to reference her name directly or change the things fans love about her.

The Unfavourite: The Windows 8 version seems to be this; being the last of the three versions to get updates, and sometimes not getting updates at all.

Winged Humanoid: The human versions of Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash each sport a pair of wings in the Equestria Girls dancing mini-game, depending on which modifier you use.

Winged Unicorn: If you play as any unicorn in Clear the Skies (all non-pegasi are given magical wings)

Princess Celestia, Princess Luna and Princess Cadance, naturally.

Now includes Twilight Sparkle as of the October 2013 update, reflecting her ascension to an alicorn Princess in the show.

With This Herring: Nightmare Moon must be defeated! Twilight starts off with... Spike, her library, and enough resources to build a windmill. First pony to come and help her? Bon Bon.

Your Size May Vary: In the mine cart game when playing as certain Ponies, looking real closely at the Rainbow Dash that rescues your character upon crashing shows her being much larger than even Big Macintosh. Inverted with the filly/colt characters, where Rainbow Dash is instead portrayed as much smaller in size.

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